0/5

Mondays don’t make The Cut

ABC's attempt at local drama in a 'new' timeslot didn't pull a big audience.

22The ABC’s foray into drama in a 9:35pm Monday timeslot didn’t fire with viewers last night.

The Cut managed a disappointing 562,000 viewers.

However another first-run Aussie drama, Underbelly, took a cool 2.2m viewers at 8:30pm on Channel Nine.

ABC’s drama was trounced by the Oscars 1.2m viewers, followed by Brothers and Sisters on 839,000 viewers. The news was worse for TEN with Dexter on a lowly 508,000 (such a shame for a knockout series).

When Enough Rope was airing in the same timeslot Denton was averaging around 1m viewers last year.

Despite airing at 9:35pm, ABC is no doubt hindered by commercial shows which don’t finish on time. TEN has even pushed several of its shows out by an extra ten minutes in the guide. Or maybe it was the mixed reviews the show received.

The decision to slate the  drama on Monday nights may prove costly for ABC.

Bed of Roses was  taking over 900,000 viewers in its 7:30pm Saturday slot in 2008. New Tricks reruns in that slot  won 965,000 viewers last week.

But The Cut is M-rated, requiring a timeslot of no earlier than 8:30pm in prime time.

Week 9

25 Responses

  1. Pity that The Cut rated poorly. On the subject of Dexter I don’t think it’s that much of a shame, because if you’re a big enough fan you can already go out and buy/rent the season 2 DVDs and watch it without ads.

  2. I thought the ads for The Cut looked terrible. It looked like a lame sitcom padded out for an hour with a paper thin plot, lame one-liners and poor acting. It’s almost as bad as Chandon Pictures. Almost.

  3. Sorry ABC, but you’ve missed with this one. The promos made it look promising and I was looking forward to it but just ended up diappointed. Weak plot, bad acting and a total lack of depth anywhere. I’ll give it one more go but I’m not hopeful of a big turnaround.

  4. Dexter rated so bad because the DVD’s of series 2 have been out for like 6 months or more! What do they expect?

    I hope they don’t move The Cut or take it off like the knee jerk reactions of other networks! It’s only got 6 episodes just air them.

    Most people would have been watching Underbelly then stayed on the Oscars to see if Heath won or whatever.. so that would have also affected ratings for both Dexter & The Cut, lets just hope they do better next week.

  5. I watched it despite lack of promotion.
    Nice relaxing viewing – no need to engage brain to watch it.
    Mind you, never seen a people meter or had ratings book or been asked by netwok whats hows I watch, so again we rely on a minute amount of people nationwide to give overall guessitmates of what the whole of Australia watches.
    Call me cynical , but most folk I know turned off Underbelly after 1st week and some shows that get high ratings, no one watches.

  6. Caught the second half of this and it did look a bit light on. As for Dexter those who havent seen it on Pay or DVD should really check it out because its a great show. At least 10 havent chopped it yet (golf clap 10), but I fear its fta days are numbered.

  7. I was going to say it’s not surprising given it was a very average show but then most people would have been like me and not known that until it was over so it must have been time slot related.

    I would be stunned if even half those viewers came back for episode 2 next week – really not up to Auntie’s usual standards. It was boring, bland and trying too hard to be appealing to the under 30’s. At one point there’s a stupid line about John Wood’s character’s son not wanting to swim up and down the pool so he could become the next Ian Thopre – only this character would have been 10 years older than Thorpey so it wasn’t a sensible reference but I assume it was included because his is a name ‘the kids’ would have heard of. Daft.

    And then there was the woeful acting from Julieanne Newbould and Ben Oxenbould.

    And did I mention the dull, predictable plot?

    I certainly won’t be watching again.

  8. Can’t even say I knew this show existed but Monday following Four Corners and Media Watch just seems like a dumb timeslot – ABC should try this sort of thing 8.30 Thursdays where they’ve have a lot of success with dramatised docos

  9. I think most ABC shows get less than a million. I don’t know what kind of numbers they were expecting. Maybe 800k at best.

    Enough Rope was an established show with a well known host.

  10. I TiVo’d this show last night and attempted to watch the whole thing but couldn’t do it in the one sitting.

    I couldn’t pick whether it was a drama or a comedy or a dramedy or satire?

    One thing I could pick was the use of my suburb of Concord as the set for the series.

    It was very strange seeing this shop/office open up for a month in Majors Bay Road and then close – but now I know why!

  11. Sorry – The Cut just doesn’t look like an ABC program. I didn’t even think about switching it on. Bravo tho’ for Julieanne Newbould having a role on television.

    That said, a bit of programming nouse wouldn’t go astray. There are two ‘obvious’ options.

    Firstly, Q&A to Monday nights, with The Cut to Thursday. Q&A might pick up some of the Denton audience (not me, because it’s worse than talkback radio). And, let’s face it, Q&A is just ‘Monday Conference’ with another name.

    Option 2, is Foreign Correspondent to Monday night, with The Cut to Tuesdays.

    Either of these will be a fit with Four Corners, making Monday ‘current affairs’ night on ABC1; in the same way that Wednesday is ‘comedy’ night; Friday and Saturday are ‘police’ nights.

    David – pass this on to someone in programming at Aunty will you?

  12. Your prob best of putting a randome Brit show against big-ass drama from the networks. Save the new costly drama for a slot it can get viewers in. Dont know if they should change it though. I have no sugestions. Wed is booked up and not appropriate because the show is an hour. Thursday there is footy shows which compete with the subject matter. After the Bill? I think the brits stop watching the ABC once the Aussie shows come on (Like my parents do!).

  13. Its very ordinary .The ABC as a public broadcaster should do a pilot episode & test it with a test audience before committing to spending $300,000 on a series. I am sure a test audience would have given this the flick as is. Our actors must go into a character & not just look like they did in Blue Healers! Hard to get into the show as John Wood looks like John Wood as he has in all his parts. At least change your hair style, loose weight & look different.

  14. It’s a shocking timeslot. It was lost amongst late finishing Underbelly, Hugh Jackman hosting the Oscars and still popular Brothers & Suisters. Aussie dramas would do better on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday on the ABC.

  15. Maybe try it on Thursday nights when there’s no so much competition. Sadly, the result for this show and Dexter will only prove to the likes of 9 that late staring and finishing shows is a strategy that is working. Hope they have an encore?

  16. Well I took a look at this show while watching the NBA on Ten HD and gotta say it isn’t exactly thrilling Aussie drama. Add to the fact they have put it up against Underbelly it’s no suprise it’s achieved this low rating.

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